Overwhelm

On the risk of sounding a bit like I’m whining, my topic this week is overwhelm. I realize that I live a privileged existence here in a first world country, but despite that I still suffer occasionally from overwhelm. This past weekend I was truly under the weather on Sunday. I’m not sure if I caught a stomach bug or if it was the Boston Crème doughnut I ate on Saturday (bakery to remain unnamed), but I felt a bit like death warmed over. Luckily my husband had the day off and was able to pitch in and help out despite also being pretty tired from his six-day work week. On Monday morning I felt somewhat better, and I managed to get out of bed at a reasonable hour. I even wrote my Morning Pages. In my stream of consciousness writing, I found myself mentally sorting through all the projects, paperwork, and plans, that I have going. 

 

Around 7:30am I transitioned to getting the kids up and fed. My father very sweetly stopped by a little after 8am to check on me to see how I was doing. It’s fairly standard for us to check in around that time in the morning to discuss our plans for the day, so it wasn’t as if his visit was unexpected. He began to talk about our small herd of cattle that are living on a neighbor’s farm. The plan is to move most of them here soon, so that said neighbor can start his own herd again. We have amazing friends who are helping us out with this project, so I don’t actually have much firsthand involvement. Regardless, it suddenly felt like one more project was being piled on, and I had missed a deadline already. It was sort of like those recurring nightmares I have where I show up to a mathematics class at university and all the homework assignments are due at end of term the next day, but I haven’t completed any. And it wasn’t a project that I started or had any say or decision-making power about really. Anxiety welled up.

 

I burst into tears. 

 

My poor dad came over and gave me a hug. He had zero idea of what I’d already been mentally juggling in that moment, and he’s got quite a few things on his own plate. We’re both still reeling from the loss of my mom to cancer complications last July. Her birthday is at the end of this month. Throughout the course of the day and several additional chats, I started to feel better bit by bit. Several things helped me, and now on Tuesday I feel like I *may* actually be able to tackle what I would like to achieve this season on the homestead and in my life. I think in many respects the anxiety and overwhelm came in no small part from feeling like I have projects to complete in support of others and that I am sometimes asked to de-prioritize the projects that are near and dear to my heart. When I feel overwhelmed, the suggestion often offered is to do less in the garden or to not worry so much about making my artwork. These aren’t actual solutions, but I’ll talk a bit about that in my next post. For now, I’m being patient with myself and remembering to chip away at my goals “bird by bird,” as Anne Lamott put it. I’ve sussed out a few things that help me to avoid or cope with overwhelm, so I’ll share those with you next time.

 

Be well. Be blessed. And remember to be patient with yourself.